gone fishin

This blog is dedicated to fly fishing, particularly fly fishing Martha's Vineyard, and to reviewing various fishing books.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Zero G 9-weight Tip-flex

After waiting for the Zero G 2-piece 9 weight tip-flex to go on sale from Orvis, it finally happened a couple of months back. I was fairly confident that it would, given that Orvis has been putting so much marketing into the Helios version and they're, like everyone else, getting out of the 2-piece game (a bad decision from my perspective ... I much prefer less pieces than the easier-t0-travel-with trend of the 4+ piece phenomenon.).

I had my first chance to break in the new rod this past weekend and it is a great piece of hardware. I especially like the switch to a tip flex. My other rod is a T3 9-weight mid-flex 2-piece which is an excellent rod, too, but I really like the stiffness of the tip-flex and the power it generated. The downside is that an equivalent fish felt substantially larger on the mid-flex rod than the tip-flex, but I'm not going back :-).

Martha's Vineyard - Memorial Day 2008

I spent a few nights fishing there this weekend.

In general, it was slow, but I did manage to catch a few fish.

The first night was brief (I arrived late) and consisted of a stint at Vineyard Haven harbor and the little bridge. The harbor had a decent number of sand eels and I managed to take one small striper on a black deceiver. I also had a significant strike at the little bridge on a white deceiver.

The second night was a bust. I definitely put in my time and the tides were against me, running into a slack tides everywhere ... tashmoo, VH harbor, East beach and the little bridge.

The last night I decided to go to Lobsterville. A good decision, based on a visit to Coop's earlier in the day, although he did say it was hit or miss. I took a couple of nice fish, including one in the 26 inch range. Both fish were taken on a black deceiver, which I switched to after trying a floating sand eel and other small bait imitations.

I didn't see any notable surface action at Lobsterville, but you can tell that it's about to explode!